Alexis looked at him as if expecting something.
At last Peter uncovered his face, again stooped to his son, took his head between his hands and silently kissed him. For the first time in his life the Tsarevitch saw tears in his father’s eyes. Alexis wanted to say something more, but Peter rose and hurriedly left the room.
The same day in the evening, his new confessor, Father Varlaam, came to the Tsarevitch.
On his return to Moscow, Alexis had begged to have his former confessor, Father James Ignatief. He was refused, and Father Varlaam was appointed instead. He was an old man, “without guile,” “quite a chicken,” according to Tolstoi’s expression.
The Tsarevitch was glad, however, to have even him; he longed for an opportunity of confessing as soon as possible. He repeated in confession all he had said to his father. He also added what he had held back from him, as to his mother, the Tsaritsa Eudoxia, his aunt the Tsarevna Marya, and his uncle, Abraham Lopoukhin, and their united wish for a “speedy fulfilment,”—his father’s death.
“You ought to have spoken the whole truth to your father,” remarked Father Varlaam, who appeared somewhat agitated. Something strange, hasty and mysterious seemed to have passed between them, yet so instantaneously that Alexis could not say whether it was real or only a fancy.